Free-form magic systems

Archmage Joda · Post by **Archmage Joda** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 5:22 pm

So, I was just reading the old oMage vs nMage thread wherein Frank and AncientHistory discuss the various iterations of WoD Mage, and I got to wondering, what systems out there have actual viable/good free-form magic systems, as opposed to the near incoherent Spheres/Arcana of mage and vague delineations of what each level could do therein?

If there is no such system, what would be needed for a more free-form magic system to not suck a barrel of cocks? (I have GURPS Thaumatology, which has frameworks for making magic systems, so perhaps I could try to monkey wrench something there if I know what I must have/not have)

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 6:30 pm

In before Münchhausen gets cited.

Wulfbanes · Post by **Wulfbanes** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 6:57 pm

I don't think there is one, or everyone would be all over it.

To make a free-form magic system not suck, it should not be: "Buy your flavour of magic, MTP the results", but probably "Buy the effects of your magic, MTP the flavour."

That'd require the definition of as many effects as you want magic to envelop, and write rules for how to combine several effects, what that does to casting time/resources, etc.

Problem is the moment that takes shape, it's not really free-form anymore.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 7:37 pm

Frankly, I think the very concept is inherently unimplementable, because people want it to be balanced and also let them do things that make sense.

For example, someone might be able to conjure matter out of thin air or otherwise get the ability to get matter of their choice at a target location. They could use this to materialize weapons, but logically they should also be able to materialize a chunk of lead in someone's windpipe. In an effects-based system, a "kill a dude" power is likely more expensive than "make a sword", even though it doesn't particularly make sense. But if you're going with a sphere-based system either murdering a dude is underpriced or making a sword is overpriced. I imagine most of the incoherent restrictions come from efforts to kludge away that sort of thing.

Of course, transmutation magic has it particularly bad, because we understand physics and chemistry and there's basically no sensible way to price or restrict stuff so you can accomplish things worth caring about in combat time without being able to instantly murder everyone in an arbitrary area. But other categories have similar problems.

schpeelah · Post by **schpeelah** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 7:45 pm

Wulfbane, what you're thinking of is called an 'effects based system' and HERO is the best known example. However, it's not in any way a real solution because the appeal of 'free-form magic' is exactly getting results from MTP. Another solution that misses the appeal is when your system is made of MTP to a larger degree so the rules for spells are not any more nebulous than then things the spells interact with.

I think the closest thing to workable would be a robust, well-described metaphysics system coupled with buying magic with relatively wide applicability and then doing a build-your-own-spell thing. One of the things you can't really deliver in a functional way is on-the-fly free-form, even though clever extremely situational effects is one of the things people want the most out of this kind of system, because the resolution of this is at it's core 'argue with your DM' and you just can't do that in the middle of the action without bogging everything down.

So the next best thing is probably either allowing players to argue their way into something clever and OP through their use of established metaphysics, and simple multipurpose spells with creative potential like illusions.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 9:10 pm

Yeah, your options are pretty much to either:

1. Go with something like Munchausen where anything goes untill your fellow players veto it. When that happens you then you play a veto override Y/N ? mingame.

Or

2. Go with something like HERO where you have a several dozen basic powers and several dozen general modifiers and you build generic effects by combining them, then slap a coat of flavor text on top of the result.

I have yet to see anything in between those two extremes be half as good as either, but they both have serious issues:

#1 is unsatisfying because it lacks any real internal consistency and by design players will be stepping on each other's views of what is narratively appropriate. #2 is unsatisfying because the time and effort it takes to select and combine that many effects and modifiers to accurately convey the idea of the abilities is usually too great for players to be doing that midsession, let alone mid scene.

****

Edit, but if you asked me to design something for this, the direction I would go would be to use 1000 Blank White Cards as the starting point. You'd have a few guidelines and some sample spell cards, and then players would get some number of blank spell cards which they could write new spells on midsession - and the primary limits on spells would be two different forms of social contract. Firstly, you'd change the veto from Munchausen from "when the spell is played to see if it works" to a vote "at the end of each session, to see if the spell becomes part of the game's canonical grimoire or is lame and never spoken of again". Secondly, the game would include the potential for any spontaneously created spell (even those note voted on yet) to be used as a tool of the opposition. It would still be silly and freeform and you'd have a bunch of arguments how things should work, but you would also be recording your own playgroup's favorite answers to that question as the game went on.

silva · Post by **silva** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 9:21 pm

Ive found oMage system fine for the most time as a free-form one. See also Ars Magica and Unknown Armies.

About Frank, I would take everything he says with a grain of salt. The guy is expert in creating problems that dont exist just to appear smart (see his "problems" about Apocalypse World which only exist in his own delusional world, never cropping up in any actual game ever). And the fact there is a bunch of guys around that love to suck his cock doesnt help.

vagrant · Post by **vagrant** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 9:32 pm

Silva, you are a lying piece of shit. oMage is a terrible system in every single way, starting with 'It's White Wolf' and ending with 'My physical ability to give great blowjobs.' Interacting with the magic system in any way (you know, BEING A FUCKING MAGE) involves going 'Pretty please GM, I promise to swallow' for every single magic effect. Which, depending on your fellatio skills, may be anywhere from 'You win the encounter and possibly the world in half' to 'Have fun wasting your actions!' Also see: Paradox.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 9:38 pm

Free-form magic systems tend to either dissolve into perfect Magic Tea Party or full Mother-May-I mode - either there are no mechanics whatsoever, or there are mechanics but it's a constant contest in what you can get away with.

There is a middle ground - I hate to call it a "sweet spot" - in something like the Sorcery power for Mutants & Masterminds, which basically boils down to combinations of another selection of powers for a given effect, just without needing to beg the GM's permission every time you want to use it. Like Champions or Mage, you're probably going to want to work some "standard effects" or "rotes" out ahead of time so that your fellow players don't kill you.

Ive found oMage system fine for the most time as a free-form one. See also Ars Magica and Unknown Armies.

Shut your whore mouth. Unknown Armies isn't even freeform except that it has a skill system which lets you pick whichever skill you want. It's magic system is regimented as fuck.

Mage and Ars Magica both work out to be the same Mother-May-I mode - if you have 3 dots in Mind, or combine Creo and Mundi, can you do X, Y, and Z? Well, it depends on whether Mister Cavern decides he needs player fellatio tonight. The best you get are guidelines, and never very solid ones. Shadowrun has more stringent and thought-out rules on what sorcery can and cannot do than any White Wolf supplement in any edition.

Shadowrun is actually a relatively good example of a very flexible magic system that isn't explicitly free form - but mostly because inventing a spell on the fly involves a fair number of calculations. The spell design system itself is rather elegant and brilliant in pretty much every edition; you tick the right boxes and tally up the drain code, with the Force determining all the significant number bits when you cast it. But there's a tremendous amount of room for creativity within those boundaries.

silva · Post by **silva** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 9:38 pm

Disagree. I find the game gives enough parameters and instructions as to work nicely.

And MTP is a fundamental part of the activity of playing role-playing games. And will continue to be until someone develops an AI or something to take the GM role.

erik · Post by **erik** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 9:56 pm

Disagree with what the fuck? Unknown Armies gives like a handful of way overly specific spells for each magic school and absolutely no clear guidance for a free form spell system.

To the extent that the magic system touches their godawful skill system that just further fucks things. Unknown Armies is not a guide for anything good.

MTP has its uses and is fine for things, but this thread is about systems and MTP is a lack of a system.

Goddamn me for letting a self-proclaimed troll rustle my jimmies.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 9:56 pm

Frank does not create problems just to sound smart. Go and check anything he points out as a problem in any system, it's factual. Now, whether it is representative of typical groups is another matter entirely, but the problems he cites with Wish magic in D&D, for example, and all related matters, are genuine problems. Their occurrence or non-occurrence in any given game is almost incidental. If you car's been recalled by the factory because it has a tendency to explode at high speeds, it doesn't matter whether your car has exploded, or whether you ever drive at high speed, there is a real problem with the car.

Also, MTP is not an inherent part of being a GM. MTP implies the lack of a system. If you create a new monster, that's not MTP unless you don't give it any stats and only let people defeat it by answering a riddle or sucking your cock.

silva · Post by **silva** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 11:01 pm

Perhaps he has it right about D&D, dont know as I dont really play that game. On all other games Ive seen his criticisms though, its a huge miss.

Hmmm... perhaps thats the problem right there. Assuming other games have the same goal and intended playstyle as D&D. Its like criticizing, say, Castle Falkenstein for the lack of mechanical balance between characters. Or something.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 11:22 pm

Every single one of his criticisms boils down to 'while you may play it differently, the rules actually say this . If your defense is 'nobody uses those rules because they don't work', you are, in fact, agreeing with Frank. Sometimes it is easy to see what was intended and change the game to get the desired results. But we can't count on consumers to always know how to fix a broken product. Thus, designers have an obligation to create rules that do what they claim they will out of the box.

The RPG community likes to tinker with rules, so it is very forgiving of bad/incomplete rules. Even if you intend to adjust them all, it's still nice to get rules that work from the beginning.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Wed Jun 10, 2015 12:00 am

Ancient History wrote:Mage and Ars Magica both work out to be the same Mother-May-I mode - if you have 3 dots in Mind, or combine Creo and Mundi, can you do X, Y, and Z? Well, it depends on whether Mister Cavern decides he needs player fellatio tonight. The best you get are guidelines, and never very solid ones.

I'm only speaking for Ars. My players and I have been getting a fair bit of mileage sticking to the explicit guidelines in the books; I think there's been maybe one/two (might be wrong) spells that used interpretation beyond the explicit guidelines.

Hiram McDaniels · Post by **Hiram McDaniels** » Wed Jun 10, 2015 1:20 am

Prak wrote:Frank does not create problems just to sound smart. Go and check anything he points out as a problem in any system, it's factual.

Many are factual. Some are matters of taste. For instance, ONE of his criticisms about 4/5E is that it doesn't let you play at the same power level as previous editions. But this is only a problem for people prefer games with a higher power cap.

Yes, in prior editions the precedent has been set for high-level spellcasters with god-like powers, and high-level swordguys with shit-like powers. But the game is also advertised as a team sport. If these two ideals are irreconcilable, then some (myself included) would prefer the team sport to the almighty caster show.

To-wit: the criticism that casters have been watered down in newest edition X to make them more parable with martial types, can be a selling point to some, ergo it's subjective.

Also, I'm aware that casters still make swordguys feel small in the pants in 5th edition. My sub-optimal cleric is completely curb-stomping my DM's campaign at 5th level.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Jun 10, 2015 1:23 am

I believe that the specific criticism about 4/5E's power level is that they don't let you play at the same power level as previous editions but then pretend they do. In fact, I'm fairly sure Frank has said that a lower power level would be fine, if the games acknowledged it.

Hiram McDaniels · Post by **Hiram McDaniels** » Wed Jun 10, 2015 1:36 am

Prak wrote:I believe that the specific criticism about 4/5E's power level is that they don't let you play at the same power level as previous editions but then pretend they do. In fact, I'm fairly sure Frank has said that a lower power level would be fine, if the games acknowledged it.

Ahh. That sounds like a valid criticism then. But I was under the impression that they were advertising the opposite.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Wed Jun 10, 2015 3:33 am

Hiram McDaniels wrote:
Prak wrote:I believe that the specific criticism about 4/5E's power level is that they don't let you play at the same power level as previous editions but then pretend they do. In fact, I'm fairly sure Frank has said that a lower power level would be fine, if the games acknowledged it.
Ahh. That sounds like a valid criticism then. But I was under the impression that they were advertising the opposite.

Not while they still had Orcus and other major high powered creatures in the game they didn't. They even extended the levels and created tiers that explicitly said 'you are now epic' and the like.

Hiram McDaniels · Post by **Hiram McDaniels** » Wed Jun 10, 2015 4:03 am

MGuy wrote: Ahh. That sounds like a valid criticism then. But I was under the impression that they were advertising the opposite. Not while they still had Orcus and other major high powered creatures in the game they didn't. They even extended the levels and created tiers that explicitly said 'you are now epic' and the like.

That still boils down to a difference of opinion about what constitutes an "epic" game though. You could make the case that high-level 1-3E characters could do more epic things than in 4E, and in my opinion you wouldn't be wrong. But high-level 4E adventures wherein PC's essentially fought 30th level Orcs in dungeons with dayglo wallpaper and plaster moon rocks might be sufficiently epic for some players. Personally, I find 4E to be boring as fuck and plays like painful constipation around the table for exactly the same reasons that some sing it's praises, but if that's what they have fun doing, then more power to them.

My point is that if edition X of D&D advertises toning down of spellcasters and beefing up of martial types, then that in and of itself is not a design flaw. However, if they promise a completely balanced game as a result, then absolutely pick it apart and show where, why and how they failed to do so.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Jun 10, 2015 4:09 am

5e can call itself epic and namedrop whatever dead god demons it wants, but it still comes down to the fact that pretty much every single threat can be brought down by rounding up a bowman posse. That is not high fantasy.

Hiram McDaniels · Post by **Hiram McDaniels** » Wed Jun 10, 2015 4:16 am

Prak wrote:5e can call itself epic and namedrop whatever dead god demons it wants, but it still comes down to the fact that pretty much every single threat can be brought down by rounding up a bowman posse. That is not high fantasy.

Whereas I'm perfectly fine with that notion. Diff'rent strokes and all that.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Jun 10, 2015 4:21 am

I didn't say it was bad, I said it wasn't high fantasy. If the optimal answer to "Oh, shit, a dragon!" is "mobilize the welshmen!" then your fantasy is not high, or rather, it is only high on controlled substances.

Which is fine, I don't mind, and I might actually rather enjoy playing a veteran of the anti-dragon bow battalions, but it's not the high heroic "shit there's a dragon! Call the adventurers!" fantasy that D&D has always, and continues to pretend to be.

Edit for On-Topic-ness: What do people think of hacking the d20 spells and metamagic stuff into a d20 "free form" system? I'm thinking something like reducing all the spells to first through third level, and then giving characters a bunch of free metamagic, maybe using spell points instead of vancian, and making more powerful spells with applications of metamagic?

Foxwarrior · Post by **Foxwarrior** » Wed Jun 10, 2015 4:30 am

Prak's edit: The spell lists in D&D do have quite a bit of repetition and redundancy in them, but not that much.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Jun 10, 2015 4:38 am

Well, you could start with the repetition, collapsing Summon Monster, Cure, Inflict, etc, but then you can also collapse various fire spells. Start with Produce Flame, say, and then add on things like Reach Spell and Widen Spell and maybe an automatic Heighten effect or something to make it a fireball.